The Chaos Spirits
by onesmallstepformuffin
Summary: Time gets messed up again and the TimeRiders go to investigate. They meet a strange man with a blue police box and travel with him to save the human race from Seekers.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! Welcome to my second ever fanfiction! I am already finished with this one, so updating should be pretty good. I'll try to update every day. Please review! :D**

 **This story takes place after the first TimeRiders book and the 11th Doctor is in it.**

Sal, Maddy, Liam, and Bob were sitting in the archway. Well, actually, only Liam and Bob were sitting. Maddy and Sal were cooking dinner. For once they weren't buying takeout. Maddy was just putting the carrots on the stove when she was hit with a wave of dizziness.

"Did you feel that?" she asked Sal.

"Yeah. It felt like a time wave."

Maddy walked over to the window and pressed the button to raise the shutters. She looked out into the street. Liam walked over to see too.

"Looks the same. But I can't really be sure. You should check, Sal."

Sal walked over and looked out the window.

"Looks the same from here."

"Maybe we should go out and check if it's the same everywhere else," said Liam. "That felt like a pretty big wave, I can't believe nothing changed."

The TimeRiders went outside and walked to the corner. Everything was dead silent. They could hear the wind. It looked deserted.

"It's definitely not the same," said Sal. "Look at the cars. Everything looks really old, but also new, like it's never been used before."

"So everyone just left?" asked Maddy. "What happened to them? Do you think there's been another zombie apocalypse? The last one was bad enough."

"Only one way to see!" Liam walked over to a store door and opened it. "Not even locked." He stepped inside.

Maddy and Sal walked over and joined him in the store.

"Shaddyah! Everything is so old!"

"Yeah! Look at the people!" exclaimed Maddy. "Ugh, who would ever wear that?"

Liam walked over to the counter. "1983. That's the date on this calendar."

"That would explain the terrible fashion sense," said Maddy.

"What do you think happened?" asked Sal

"I don't –"

Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by a loud whistling and hissing and banging and overall just really hard to describe sound. The TimeRiders ran over to the open door and looked out. A strangely dressed man stepped out of a weird blue box thing that they could swear had not been there minutes earlier. He turned towards them and said, "Hello!" He had a bow tie and a weird glowy pen thing, which he pointed at them and frowned.

"Uh, hello," said Maddy. "Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor," the man answered.

"Doctor who?" Maddy questioned.

"Just the Doctor. Anyway, what are your names?"

"I'm Maddy, this is Liam, and Sal. How did you get here?"

The Doctor gestured vaguely towards the blue box.

"Who are you?" he asked back. "Why are you the only people here?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out." Liam answered.

"It seems like something happened in 1983 that caused all the people to disappear." Maddy explained.

"Hmm. Well, I guess we need to go to 1983 then. Ooh, I love the 80s!" the strange man said.

"How are you going to get to 1983?" Sal asked.

"In my Tardis!" the stranger exclaimed happily.

Liam asked, "What's a Tardis?"

"It's my super awesome time and space travelling blue police box!" The Doctor explained.

Maddy looked at him skeptically. He noticed and invited them inside. They accepted and went in.

"Shaddyah!"

"It's bigger on the inside!"

"Woah! How does it work?" Maddy the ever-geeky technology nerd asked.

"Some Time Lord technology. There are –"

Liam interrupted what was likely going to be a really long and technical description of the mechanics of the Tardis.

"We have a time machine too."

The Doctor silenced and turned towards him.

"Can I see?"

"Um, sure!" Liam replied.

The TimeRiders took the Doctor into the archway.

"This is our time displacement machine." Maddy explained.

"How can you time travel with such primitive and simple technology?" The Doctor asked. He pushed some buttons. He pointed his glowy pen thing at the displacement machine.

"Uh, it uses tachyon energy to make a portal that we can walk through. It goes through another dimension." Maddy answered.

"Weird," said the Doctor. "How do you get back?"

"Someone has to always stay here to activate the return windows."

"Oh. My Tardis can transport itself. We can all go to 1983 in her."

"We might as well go now," Maddy said. "We can take this Tardis thing. Bob can stay here."

They introduced the Doctor to Bob. The Doctor looked at him curiously. He looked at the rest of them a bit sadly. Then he walked out the door. They rushed to catch up with him. He walked into the Tardis. They hesitated outside the door. "Well, come on then!" the Doctor yelled out at them. They walked in.

"Are you sure about this?" whispered Sal. "We don't even know who he really is."

"No," Maddy answered. "But we'll still have Bob to give us a return window if we really need it."

"Hold on!" the Doctor yelled.

They held on. The Doctor pulled some levers and pressed some buttons and the Tardis made a horrible grinding noise. The Tardis shook around, and even Liam was unable to hold on. They fell off and crashed into the walls.

Finally, the Tardis stopped shaking. The Doctor got back up and went to the control panel. He looked at the screen and pressed some more buttons, mumbling incomprehensible things under his breath.

"What happened?" asked Liam.

"I'm not sure…" the Doctor said. "Something sucked all the energy out of her. We'll have to stop for a few days to reenergize."

"Are we at least in 1983?" asked Maddy.

"We should be." The Doctor walked over to the door and peered out. He turned around and said, "Yep!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello again! Here is chapter 2! :D**

The Doctor and the TimeRiders walked out of the Tardis. They stopped, wondering where to go now. The Doctor continued forwards and walked up to a person.

"Where is this?" he asked.

"Uh, Seattle…" the stranger answered.

"What day is it?"

"It's Monday…"

"Ugh, I hate Mondays. But I meant the date."

"Oh, it's –" he consulted his watch, "April 7."

"Thanks!"

The Doctor walked back to the TimeRiders. "It's April 7, 1983. And we are in Seattle."

"Okay," said Maddy. "We should look at some newspapers, maybe they will say something about the contamination that happened here."

They walked towards the nearest newspaper stand.

"I've never been to Seattle before! It's cool!" the Doctor exclaimed happily. "I love the 80s. The music is great. And the first video games! But not the fashion," he said, looking warily at a passerby wearing a leather jacket over a neon shirt and some shoulder pads. "The neon is cool, but not really the earrings and shoulder pads. Not to mention the hair." He shuddered.

"Yeah… but I like Monty Python. It's one of my favorite movies." Maddy added.

"Oh! I love that movie!"

Sal and Liam, the only people who had actually been paying attention to where they were going, stopped to look at the newspaper. The headings seemed legit. '$14000 Damage Done by Dam Burst'. 'Tacoma Protests Continue'. Nothing fishy here.

They turned back to the other members of their group, who were now in a heated discussion about which band was better, Rush or Schoolhouse Rock. (Schoolhouse Rock defended valiantly by the Doctor.) They slowly walked back to the Tardis and sat down in front of it.

"Well," said the Doctor, "I'm afraid there's not really much we can do until the Tardis is done reenergizing, or until we figure out what happened. So we will be stuck here for a few days."

"We can go sightseeing." Liam said. "There's a needle thing that they were talking about in the newspaper."

"It was called a Space Needle, I think," Sal added.

The Doctor walked up to another random person and asked, "How do we get to the Space Needle?"

"Uh, you can go straight 3 or 4 blocks and then turn right and you will be able to see it. Then just walk towards it. It's only about a mile or so."

"Okay, thank you!"

"No problem."

The Doctor turned back to the others. "Let's go!"

They followed the man's directions and went straight, then turned right. Then they walked straight some more, until they were right under the Space Needle.

"Wow," Liam said, "It's big."

"Let's go up!" the Doctor exclaimed.

They waited in line for the tickets. The line was really long. Apparently it was a popular tourist spot during spring break. They sat on a rock, while Maddy stood in line.

Suddenly, a scream rang out. Someone screamed again. The Doctor got up and ran to the source of the screaming. The TimeRiders followed.

It was a woman in the McDonalds. She was surrounded by a group of people who were comforting her, and some customers who looked very confused.

"What happened?" asked the Doctor.

"I was cooking the food, and there was this weird buzzing noise. -snif- Then I heard Mike yell, and I turned around to see why, -snif- and there was a really nasty pile of body parts -snif- all fused together and -snif- I screamed too and then I ran out."

The Doctor and the TimeRiders ran into the back.

Uh oh, Maddy thought.

There was a crowd of people. They pushed their way through and saw two people merged together. It was not a pleasant sight. They yelled at everyone to leave, and then examined them further.

One of the men who had gotten fused into the other one was obviously from the 80s. He must be Mike, the other McDonalds worker. The other one looked more modern. It was hard to tell.

"Irresponsible time travelers. This must be the source of the contamination." Maddy said.

"What did you say happened?" the Doctor asked.

"Someone didn't check before they opened a portal, and they opened one right inside of another guy."

"Hmm," said the Doctor. "We should probably move them somewhere where people won't see them. It's pretty disturbing."

"Yeah. But where?" Liam asked.

"Uh, on second thought, I don't want to touch them. They're fine where they are."

Their strange conversation was interrupted (yet again) by a scream. They ran into the other room. A person had collapsed on the floor. The Doctor ran up to him, and started to shake him. He checked for a heartbeat. There was a very quiet heartbeat.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Uh, he just sort of collapsed," one of the customers replied. "There was sort of a shadowy thing over him, but maybe I just imagined it."

"No, you didn't imagine it…" the Doctor said ominously. The TimeRiders turned towards him. "It's right there."

They looked where he pointed. It was a Seeker.

"Oh no, not these again!" Maddy exclaimed in frustration. "We only just finished dealing with the last one!"

"What is it?" asked the Doctor.

"Seekers," Maddy clarified. "They live off of sucking the emotions and thoughts out of people, which kills them."

"How do we get rid of them?"

"They usually fade away if they can't get any energy from anyone. But I don't think that is going to work here, what with all the people everywhere."

"Where'd it go?" asked Liam, looking closer at the patch of floor. "It was just there!"

"Huh. It was." Maddy sighed. "It went somewhere, I guess. It can't be too far away."

"Since we have no idea how to face these things, we should maybe head back to the Tardis," suggested Sal. "Maybe there will be something about them there."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello again! (wow 3 days in a row amazing) here's the next chapter! :D If anyone is actually reading this, here you go! Please review, it makes me happy!**

They went back to the Tardis. When they got there, the Doctor immediately went into the library and got his super big book of space aliens. Maddy, Sal, and Liam got some big books and started searching too.

The Doctor flipped to the glossary. "Seekers…" he mumbled, running his finger down the page. "Aha! Seekers!" he read. The others turned to look at him. "See Chaos spirits." He turned to the page about chaos spirits. "Chaos Spirits are energy spirits. They live in between dimensions and times. They feed off the energy of people's emotions, thoughts, and feelings. They are very rare, because they fade away if they cannot get proper nourishment. They are often described as looking like a shadow or a ghost."

"Nothing about how to stop them." Maddy sighed.

"Oh yeah, I remember these things!" the Doctor exclaimed after a few moments of thought. "They are kind of important for Time Lords. Chaos Spirits are what happen when time travel goes wrong, or when there is somehow a rip in time or space. It's never happened before though."

"So what do we do?" Liam asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Time travelers are usually careful enough to not cause a rip in time and space. I guess this guy wasn't."

"This must be the contamination," said Sal. "Do you think a Seeker could wipe out the entire population?"

"I'm not sure. There are probably more than one though. It's unlikely that the rip caused by opening a portal into that man was so small only one could get through. Probably at least four or five?" he estimated.

"More Seekers," Liam sighed.

"What are we going to do about them though?" Sal asked.

"I don't think we can do anything right now," Maddy said. "It's been a long day. We should probably get some sleep and form a plan in the morning."

"Good idea."

The TimeRiders and the Doctor settled into the spare rooms in the Tardis. As tired as she was though, Sal couldn't sleep. She kept wondering whether they really had to fix the past. Why couldn't they just leave it this way? She'd seen how the world had gone. It was pretty bad. All the wars over dwindling resources, the major population growth, and the general ignorance and apathy over the state of the world. No one seemed to care anymore. She questioned whether it was really better to make history go back to how it was before. Who was even telling them what they had to do? Foster? He was gone.

Sal suddenly felt guilty. Foster had worked his whole life to keep this timeline. Another team had even died defending it. (Probably killed by Seekers, she thought grimly.) She had no right to change how it went. Especially since the time wave could change or even erase her family.

Sal went to bed. She could think about this more in the morning. It didn't matter now. She was in a cool time machine with a crazy, probably alien guy! What could go wrong?

With that comforting thought, she went to sleep.

Early the next day, Maddy was woken up by an excited Doctor running around in the hallways. She got up and asked him what was going on. He said he has finally found the Tardis's arcade room. He had always known she had one, he said. He just had never found it. Until now.

"Well, I don't mean to spoil your fun," Maddy said, "but it's really early in the morning, and there are more important things to worry about. Mainly, Seekers killing every human on the planet."

"Yeah, I know. But it's always funner to celebrate when things are going really badly. It makes things happier."

At that point, the Doctor's antics had woken up Sal and Liam. They groggily walked out of their rooms and into the control room, where Maddy and the Doctor were having their grim discussion. They turned on the TV. The news story was about the mysterious deaths all around the city. They turned it back off.

"So, what are we going to do about the Seekers?" Sal asked.

"We still don't know anything about them," the Doctor explained. "They have never been killed before. If they even can be killed. Can you kill energy spirits?" He trailed off, considering the idea. "No, that's probably not the right word."

"Could we go and stop the person from opening the portal?" asked Liam.

"No, we don't know where he came from. Or when." Maddy sighed. This was way harder than last time.

"They come through a gap in time and space, caused by a portal. Could we open another portal, and force them back through?" Liam suggested.

"That might work." The Doctor considered the suggestion. "But we would probably need to create another rip to get them back through. It could work though."

"Maybe if we forced more energy into the portal it would rip," Maddy said. "Send the Chaos spirits back to Chaos space."

Sal interrupted, "Um, guys, are we sure it's really a good idea for time to go back to normal? I've seen what happens in the future, and it's not good. Although I suppose it's better than no humans at all. But maybe if we just changed the future a little bit, so it would not go so badly."

"You've heard Foster," said Maddy. "For good or for bad, history has to go a certain way. Otherwise it could let out even more Seekers."

"Actually," the Doctor interrupted, "that's scientifically impossible. Changing the future doesn't open up a rip in time. I've done it plenty of times. And what this Foster guy says is not completely true either. Time can be rewritten. It doesn't have to go any specific way."

"But," Liam argued, "it's our job to make sure no one changes history and makes it worse. And all the humans being dead is definitely worse than wars or whatever else happens."

"Foster worked his whole life to keep this timeline," Maddy added. "Another team died to keep this timeline. We can't just change it. Their whole lives would be for nothing."

"Anyway," the Doctor interrupted, "I'm sure you'd all like to keep arguing about your job and history and cool stuff like that but right now there are more important problems. Like Chaos spirits."

That made everyone quiet.

"So, what's the plan?" asked Liam.

"I will go to the archway and open a portal," Maddy said. "I can put more energy into it and hopefully get it to rip a little. But not too much."

"We need to figure out exactly how many Seekers there are and where they are," Sal added. "Then we can lure them into the portal."

"The Tardis can probably do that," the doctor said. "There must be a foreign energy sensor or something somewhere that can sense Chaos spirits."

"Then we will need something to lure them into the portal," Maddy said.

"I can do that too," said the Doctor. "They want thoughts and feelings? I have a thousand years' worth. They can't keep away from that."

"Wait," Maddy stopped. "You're one thousand years old?"

"Yep. Well, give or take. It's a bit hard to keep track with all the time travel stuff."

"But –"

The Doctor cut her off. "There are more important things than my age to worry about right now. I can tell you that later. After we stop the Chaos spirits."

"Ok, but later I'm getting a full explanation."

"So," interrupted Liam, "Maddy is going to open a portal, and the Doctor will find the Seekers and lead them to the portal. What can me and Sal do?"

"Uh, you should probably both stay here with the Doctor," Maddy answered. "His part is harder and more things can go wrong. And I'll have Bob with me at the archway."

"Yeah," Sal agreed.

"Alright, so let's start with the Chaos spirit detector thing then!" the Doctor said. "Go see if there's a purple shiny wire in that box over there." He pointed and Liam started to search. "And, I also need a foreign energy detector. That should be down here." He walked under the platform into the Tardis's wiring. Liam continued searching in the tangled mess of wires that had been in the box where the Doctor had pointed. Sal went over to help him.

"Aha!" the Doctor exclaimed from below. He came back up to the main console. He set the huge metal thing down on the floor. "Haven't used this in ages. Any luck with the wire?" he asked.

"We can't find it…" Sal replied.

The Doctor walked over to the box and looked for a few seconds. Not seeing it, he went to the next cupboard over and opened it. A huge mass of multicolored ping pong balls fell out and all over the floor. "Whoops. Forgot I had that in here," he said.

He tried the next cabinet. Thankfully, this cabinet was well organized, and it took no time at all to find the right box and the connector cable they needed.

"Found it!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Wrong box. Sorry."

The Doctor connected the wire from the Tardis screen to the energy detector thing. It made a weird beeping sound, and the screen turned on. The Doctor turned some dials on the detector, and it started to buzz. He turned the dials back and instead pressed some buttons. This time it worked, showing a map on the screen. He flipped some levers, and pushed more buttons. The map descended to the area around Seattle. He pressed another button and the screen turned into a thing that looked kind of like a radar. The screen stalled for a couple seconds, then started to search.

After about a minute, the detector had searched the whole area. Everyone crowded around the screen. Four small dots indicated four Seekers. They were all spread around the area. Comparing the black radar map to a street map of Seattle, the Doctor found that there were two at Seattle Center, one in the Seattle Art Museum, and one in a place that from the map looked like it was just houses.

"In the most popular spots, makes sense," the Doctor said. "They are so spread out, I will probably have to go to them to get their attention, make them follow me."

"We will need to get a car or something," remarked Liam. "It's pretty far."

"Where are we going to open the portal?" asked Maddy. "Can't be anywhere with too many people."

"You should open it somewhere close to this one up here," the Doctor said. "It's the farthest away. And since it's in a residential area, there shouldn't be too many people there."

"How about here?" Maddy pointed to a street corner next to the location of the last Seeker.

"Great!"

"So I will open a portal there at 4:30 tonight. That sound good?"

"Alright. Now we just gotta get a car, and catch those Chaos spirits!"

"You should just get a car and keep it in the Tardis," Liam suggested. "There's enough room, so there is."

"How would it fit through the door?" Sal asked.

"That doesn't matter now," Maddy said. "He doesn't have a car. So we need to get one."

"Can we just take one? Or is that too illegal?" asked Liam.

"I have a friend who lives in Seattle," the Doctor said.

"I thought you had never been here before?" Maddy asked.

"They moved here. Anyway, I can probably get them to lend me their car for a day."

"Ok."

The Doctor picked up the Tardis's phone, and, after consulting the address book, dialed a number. He waited for the person to pick up. "Hello Magnus!" he said. "It's the Doctor."

"Oh! What's going on now?" asked the voice on the other end.

"I need to borrow your car for a day."

"Why?"

"You know, stopping monsters from destroying the human race. Same as always," he said.

"Alright. I will come and get you. Where are you?"

"I'm at –" he stepped outside to check, "the corner of Dexter Avenue and Harrison Street."

"Oh! I know that place. I'll be right there. 10 minutes." He hung up.

"I need to go back to 2001," said Maddy. "To open that portal."

"Alright," the Doctor said, "next stop, 2001!" He pulled a lever. The Tardis shook around some. Then it stopped. Maddy stepped out.

"Don't forget!" she yelled back. "4:30!"

"We won't," said Liam.

The Doctor pulled the lever again, and they went back to 1983.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello again! (So much for updates every day, whoops) Please review :D !**

After the Tardis had quieted down, they heard that someone was knocking on the door. The Doctor walked over and opened the door. "Ah, Magnus! Great to see you again!"

Sal's first impression of him was that he was old. Really, really old. He looked so old she was amazed he was still able to drive a car.

"It's been a long time," the man said fondly. He walked up to the Doctor, leaning on his cane. "But you haven't changed a bit."

The Doctor looked sad.

"The curse of being me, I suppose." He frowned. "But right now we need to get going! Only an hour and a half until Maddy opens the portal!" He introduced Magnus to Liam and Sal, and they walked out of the Tardis and got into Magnus's car. Magnus drove.

The first place they stopped was right under the Space Needle. The Doctor, Sal, and Liam all got out and split up, looking for any signs of a disturbance. Sal spotted the ambulance first. She yelled for the others. They came over.

"Where do you think the Seeker is?" Sal asked.

"Probably not too far. It should follow us," the Doctor said, not very reassuringly.

They ran back to the car.

They stopped again, only a couple blocks farther, in front of the Pacific Science Center. They got out. They tried to go in, but stopped when they realized you had to pay, and they didn't have any money.

"Well, what do we do now?" asked Liam.

"I guess, wait until something happens," Sal said.

They didn't have to wait long. A woman ran into the entrance and yelled "Call 911! Someone's dying!"

They ran after her. The person at the desk was too confused and worried to do anything about it.

They saw the victim in the dinosaur exhibit. The man was lying on the ground. Unnoticed to all but those looking for it, a shadow glided away, sensing bigger prey. It glided towards the Doctor. They ran.

"Well, we know it's working then!" he yelled as they ran back down the stairs and out the door. They got back in the car. Sal looked at the clock. 3:51.

The next stop was at the Seattle Art Museum. As soon as they went in, they stopped, disappointed to find themselves in the same predicament again. They waited for fifteen minutes without anything happening. They went outside. 4:15.

"Maybe it's left already," said Sal.

"I should have brought that detector thing," the Doctor said.

However, they were spared from more waiting when Sal saw a shadowy figure coming towards them. They ran again. Three down, one to go. But time was running out.

The next (and last) stop was under a bridge. They got out of the car.

Liam was the first to see the huge carving of a troll under the bridge. "Woah," he said.

Sal and the Doctor turned around. "Awesome!" exclaimed the Doctor.

"Reminds me of a TV show I watched when I was little," said Sal, "it had a troll under a bridge who asked riddles and wouldn't let anyone pass."

They waited for several minutes, watching for any sign of a Seeker. They saw nothing. Sal checked her phone. 4:26. Four minutes until the portal.

Sal felt a strange tingling feeling. She turned around, and saw a Seeker, right behind her. She screamed.

The Doctor and Liam turned around. But they were too late. She had collapsed.

"No, no no no no no!" the Doctor yelled. He and Liam dropped down to help her. Sal was not responding, only breathing shallowly. They picked her up and put her in the car. Magnus called 911.

"Only two minutes until the portal opens," the Doctor said. "We have found them all now. We can kill them. I don't know if that will help her, but it's our best chance. And it will stop other people from dying."

The Doctor ran to the corner. The portal was scheduled to open anytime now. He had to stop this. He had to stop the killing.

The portal opened. At first, Liam thought, it looked just like a regular portal. But then it started to shine brighter, and brighter, until he couldn't look straight at it anymore. It also made an extremely loud and annoying noise that gave him a headache. Let's hope we don't ever have to do this again, he thought.

He saw the Doctor walk towards the portal. He stood in front of it, yelling words she couldn't hear over the earsplitting noise of the portal. He seemed to be taunting the Seekers, egging them to come closer. He didn't know if they could understand him, but he saw three shadows appear around him. Where's the fourth? he thought with alarm. A few seconds later, a fourth spirit appeared. He sighed with relief. It was time to end this.

He looked down at Sal. He could hear the ambulance sirens only a few blocks away, but would they be in time? Would they even be able to save her? Would killing the Seekers make her come back?


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello (again)! Just figured since I'm already done I should post it now so I don't forget. This is the last chapter :( some happy fluffy stuff and somewhat dramatic fighting of Seekers. This is my first ever finished fanfic! (I'll try to finish that other one, sorry)**

The Doctor stood in front of the portal. He looked out at the four chaos spirits gathered around him, waiting him to step away. As much as they wanted him, they were still wary of the portal which would imprison them again. The Doctor stepped towards them, and they rushed towards him. He stepped back towards the portal. They stopped. He walked around the portal, careful not to touch it. He tried to ignore the earsplitting noise coming from directly behind him, but he was finding it harder and harder. He stepped back towards the chaos spirits. They rushed towards him. They were all on one side. Good.

He stepped back. The chaos spirits did not stop this time. It seemed they had grown as tired with this game as he had. He waited until the last second he could, then stepped around to other side of the portal. The chaos spirits were too focused on their target and were sucked into the portal. The portal closed behind them. The chaos spirits had absorbed all the excess energy.

Back by the car, Liam cheered. They had won! All the Seekers were back in chaos space where they belonged. The ambulance had arrived exactly when the portal had closed and it seemed that no one had noticed the strange lights and noises. They had taken Sal into the ambulance and were giving her oxygen now. But it seemed that with the Seekers gone, she would be all right.

The Doctor ran up to the ambulance. "Is she all right?" he asked.

"She will be," the ambulance person said. "She's getting better. But we don't know what caused it." He looked a bit puzzled. "These cases have been happening every five minutes since last night, and she's the first one who has gotten better."

"Ok," sighed the Doctor in relief.

Liam looked down at Sal. She seemed to be breathing better now. She woke up, and started to sit up.

The ambulance person rushed over. He pushed her back down. "Just lie here for now," he told her. "You fainted." Sal laid back down without protest. He took her mask off.

"We can take her now, if she's okay," said the Doctor.

"Maybe wait a few more minutes to recover fully. Then she can go."

"Alright."

Sal woke up in the Tardis. For a few seconds she didn't know where she was. Then she remembered, and relaxed. She thought back to the last thing she could remember, being killed by a Seeker, and shuddered. She didn't know how she was still alive. Or even if she was alive. If she was dead, it wasn't really that bad. At least she had gotten to sleep in. But then she thought of Maddy and Liam, and how sad they would be if she died, and decided that she did not want to be dead. She got up, a bit shakily, and walked out of the bedroom to see where the others were.

After getting hopelessly lost in the endless hallways of the Tardis, and wandering around some hoping to get a bearing, she finally saw the Doctor walk out of a room. She stumbled up to him. He yelled to Liam and Maddy, who were also in the room. They raced out, and hugged her until she couldn't breathe anymore. She started to cough. They let go.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You were attacked by a Seeker," Liam said. "But we got them all back into chaos space where they belong, so it's all okay. The time stream is back to how it was before."

"Great," she said. "Let's go back home."

It wasn't that she didn't like the Tardis and the Doctor, but she was starting to miss the archway. It was hard to believe that she could ever miss that place, but she did. She had spent all her time wanting to get away from it, but now she wanted back. It didn't make sense.

"Okay," said Maddy.

"You know," said Liam, "I'm starting to miss the place, so I am. It's strange."

"Yeah," said Sal.

"Alrighty!" said the Doctor. "2001, here we come!"

He ran off towards the control room. The TimeRiders walked slower, mostly for Sal.

"I'm going to miss this place," Liam said. "And the Doctor."

"I have a feeling we might be seeing more of him," Maddy smiled. "If he keeps meddling in time like he seems to be doing."

They all smiled. They felt the Tardis shake slightly, and stopped to hold on. Then they kept walking. When they got back to the control room, they found the Doctor sitting impatiently waiting for them to come. "Finally," he said. "I thought you were never going to come!" They laughed and went outside. They said goodbye to the Doctor, and he stepped back inside the Tardis to get one last thing.

He stepped back outside again, with his hands behind his back. He put them out in front of him and made jazz hands.

"Fingerless gloves!" he exclaimed. "Gloves are cool! And gloves that don't have fingers are even cooler!"

Maddy internally cringed, but she hid it. "Um, ok." The Doctor was really excited about his new fashion accessory. She tried to seem excited. "Yeah, they're cool."

"Yeah, they are," the Doctor said. He stepped back into the Tardis. He waved goodbye with his new gloves, and then closed the door. They watched as the Tardis disappeared. Then they walked back into the archway.


End file.
